Weather could force play into Monday

THE Ryder Cup will be extended into Monday if the inclement weather persists and forces any delays to the event schedule, European Tour chief, George O’Grady confirmed yesterday.

After the tail-end of Hurricane Gordon wreaked havoc across Ireland and closed the facilities at the K Club to the public for nearly three hours early yesterday, O’Grady revealed that if Monday play was necessary, it would happen.

“We’ve looked into all the contingencies,” he said, “and we’ve always had them go into Monday if we had to. But we don’t want to visit that right now at all. The thing is that we have time up our sleeve when Sunday comes. I think this is a one-off today.”

There is also “a captains’ agreement” which governs the manner in which the Ryder Cup is played and inherent in this agreement is that play will happen on the Monday of any event if it needs to.

Ryder Cup director Richard Hills said that when he arrived on site yesterday morning, wind speeds were in excess of 40mph and the organisers began a review with health and safety consultants and principal contractors and deemed the site unsafe.

“With the winds during the night and the winds that were prevailing, we were worried about all the structures and what we call ‘loose impediments’ that were around the site. But we had a balanced view of what was happening with the winds as daylight came and the decision to open the gates again at 9.45 was then taken,” Hills said.

O’Grady added that he believed the event had the best possible weather forecasting, but it was not an exact science and they literally had to wait and see what happens. He said if a practice day had to be lost to keep the course in shape, then it would be sacrificed.

“But I don’t think the forecast is so bad that we won’t be able to play and we will do everything we can to ensure we start on time on Friday.”

Both men apologised to the public who were forced to wait in the park and ride facilities while the course remained closed.